1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to preventives and remedies for medicinal and alcoholic poisoning, which contain phytic acid or its salt as an effective component.
2. Statement of the Prior Art
Therapeutic treatments for poisoning have generally been carried out by e.g., the administration of repellents for the purposes of prohibiting the ingestion of addictive poisioning-inducing substances, the activation of antidotal enzymes by metabolic activation and the chelation and adsorption of toxic substances, and poisoning remedies containing various compounds and pharmaceutically effective components have so far been used for those purposes.
On the other hand, phytic acids widely appear in plants as calcuim and magnesium salts, sometimes a potassium salt. For instance, rice bran contains as high as 9.5 to 14.5% of phytic acid, and provides a starting material for commercial phytic acid and myoinositol deriving therefrom.
Phytic acid and its salt have been used in wide applications; in pharmaceutical applications, calcium phytate has been used as a calcium augmentor, rice bran itselt and sodium phytate as a preventive for calcium calculuses, and potassium phytate for the treatment of hyper-calcemia and the adjustment of hyper-calciurea of sarcoidosis patients. They have also been utilized in various other fields as fermentative aids for brewing sake and wine, metal removers making use of the chelating action of phytic acid, antioxidants in the presence of iron and calcium ions and anticorrosives for metals.
However, it has not been reported until now that phytic acid and its salts may be used as preventives and remedies for drug poisoning, in particular, acute and chronic alocoholism.
Surprisingly, the inventors have discovered that when orally administrated in the process of nutrition experiments, phytic acid serves to reduce body smells, inter alia, foul breath, perspiratory smell and urinous smell. In particular, further studies of the removal of alcoholic breath by phytic acid has revealed that phytic acid takes part in the production and decomposition of alcohols, inter alia, aldehydic substances that are in vivo metabolites and has the property of detoxicating them.